Good day dear blog followers, readers, listeners y todos los amantes de la musica Cubana!
Today, after a 2 week break, the blog returns from Moscow, with lot’s of great memories and some new songs to present.
During my stay in Moscow I had the opportunity to visit many of the city’s wonderful salsa venues, but the most memorable and enjoyable of all was the open air party under the Andreyevskiy bridge, on the banks of the Moskva river.
The 2nd half of the party was dedicated to el dia de la revolucion (July 26th), and so it was packed full not only with great dancers but also wonderful Cuban music, lots of Son, Son Montuno and Timba…
One of the best dances I had during my stay (at this party or otherwise) was on a beautiful Son Montuno composition (which I shall present here today, in a few brief moments…), with a gracious young lady that although claimed to have never danced Son \ Casino a contra-tiempo before, proceeded to dance wonderfully, with great following skills, body motion, a clear & distinct understanding of the rhythm and even with that special spark in her eyes and a smile from ear to ear smudged all over her face 🙂
The beautiful composition being played at those moments was the one I shall share here today – Palo Santo, interpreted by the band Asere.
The composition itself is a decent salsa composition from the 1980’s, by Puertorican Henry Fiol, which kind of went under the radar, as except the nice, eco friendly, lyrics there isn’t much to it.
But grupo Asere has completely remade the composition into a classic Son Montuno with very strong ties to Son, it’s original genre.
Asere is a septeto (7 member band) from La Habana, which came together during the late 1990’s, following the success of Buena Vista Social Club and the rise of interest towards Son music.
The band based it’s format on Son and other genres of traditional Cuban music and released it’s 1st album, Cuban Soul, in 1998.
Since then the band has expanded it’s repertoire to Timba as well as the traditional genres, toured Europe and the Americas, and released 3 more albums, being Yo Soy el Son (2000), Destinos (2005) and the latest one, to which this composition belongs – Junio Groove from 2010.
So, here is the masterpiece…
¡Disfruten!